Emily surprised me on Friday night with a date night. She got Ashley to watch Sean for the night and we had a nice dinner at Brios (awesome Italian place at the Newport on the Levee) and then we went and saw the movie “I Love You Man”. Great food, good movie, first night out we’ve hads ince my mom ‘rescued’ us last time she was here 😉
Was a bit of a rough night with Sean Friday/Saturday. and we all slept in a little bit or had a nap. I managed to get the grass cut and weed-whacked and trimmed some evergreens that aren’t fairing so well since the drought a few years ago. Sean got to play outside quite a bit. Emily had some photos she is editing and they should be up in a day or so – some really cute ones!
Sunday we went to church and to the newcomers welcome after (I’m on the committee that sponsors it). After church and , Emily and Sean took a nap and I decided to try to finish the retaining wall and garden we started a couple weeks ago. Three hours later, Emily and Sean woke up – but Sean had a fever. Emily took his temp and the poor guy was up to about 102 degrees. He hasn’t had a fever like that since his last ear infection in November. Last week was his first full week back at daycare in nearly two weeks so he probably caught something there. He threw up twice this evening but seemed to get a little better later in the night. He snuggled Emily until we put him to bed around 10pm.
While Emily took care of Sean, I went back to Lowe’s to buy the rest of of their blocks for the wall and to the grocery store to get some Pedialyte for Sean. When I got back, I checked on Sean and mom – they were snuggling on the couch watching Baby Einstein movies. I went back out and unloaded the the last 30 blocks out of the Jetta and resumed my work on the wall. About 30 minutes into it, I heard a very loud BANG. It took me a while to figure it out- but apparently the front driver’s tire exploded. I couldn’t find a hole until I removed the wheel. There was a two and a half inch gash that opened up on the inside of the tire! Very glad it happened while the car was sitting in the drive way and now while I was driving around with a couple hundred pounds of cement blocks in the trunk.
I did get the wall mostly done and some weed barrier down. I still have to tweak the wall to get it completely level and the ends flush.
The Wall:

Emily and I have been really busy lately with work and family and just haven’t really had much of a chance to post lately. What have we been up to?

– We took a 4 day vacation to Sanibel Island, Florida. It was Sean’s first time in the ocean! Of course there are pics! Emily, Sean, and I shared a cabin with my mom and sister. It was their first time there and I don’t think it will be the last. Megan and Mom got to spend a lot of time with Sean and they were there for his first time in the ocean 🙂 It was a ton of fun – just wish it could have been longer! I’m sure my sister will post the links to her photos in the comments.

– Emily’s dad and step-mom came to visit the week after. Oma and Opa got plenty of Sean time – Oma took him every day! No daycare that week! She must have been exhausted!

– Philip had his senior prom last weekend and I worked the after-prom pool party, hosted at Phil and Diana’s house.

– I sold my motorcycle! I’ve been putting it on the Craigslist off and on for a year or so and finally had a taker! I pretty much got what I was asking for it too. I think in the last two years, I only put around 800 miles on it so I really didn’t feel it was worth keeping around. I’ll eventually get another bike – when I have time to ride .. when Sean is older. So what’s next? Probably something with four wheels and two doors. Another DSM? maybe…its hard to find a good quality one. Maybe I’ll go some other route with a miata, 240sx, or…?

This Link on computerworld.com is a nicely written article about the author’s adventure of switching from a PC to a Apple Macbook Air for two weeks. I’ve got a “Mac” at home and have often contemplated trying to switch to it as my primary machine in my home-office. However, I don’t use my home office pc as much as my HP laptop with Ubuntu installed on it. Albeit, after I installed ubuntu on the laptop, I found a well written article that showed how to convert it to feel like a Mac. I think I’m starting to lean in that direction – if the hardware wasn’t so dang expensive!

Emily and I decided to not let this be a typical lazy weekend. The weather was great – nice and cool with the sun shining. With all the wind storms over the last few months we had a yard scattered with broken branches – some so large, they even looked like little trees! Then we trimmed a ton of dead branches from the trees. I made a pile in the driveway about 7 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Going to take a while to get that scrapped and into trash cans.
Emily cleaned out the gardens – weeds, dried leaves, dead plants, and straightened up the boarder rocks. She filled two trash cans with crud. While she did that I gave the yard its first mow and spread some leftover mulch in our side garden. Mowing this yard is not a quick task. Very thankful for the in-laws riding mower. If I had to push mow this yard, I’d probably invest in a whole lot of ivy!
This morning I got out and put down some Scott’s weed and feed fertilizer. With all the work the previous owners put into the house, I don’t think they did much with the grass. I’ve never seen so many dandelions and “bad” grass. Probably going to take a couple feedings to take them all out.
Emily and I also started on our first project for the backyard. With the advice from my mom, we decided to start on a small project fist to get us motivated. The back yard needs TONS of work, but we picked a small 10×10 area just behind the house next to our stairs that come into the yard. It was a bit of an eye sore because the previous owners dogs used it as a sleeping area and it has a large cement slab that covers an old cistern. We are building a retaining wall there with 8 inch lodestone blocks and will fill that area with Irish Moss. Behind that, we plan to maybe put in some hostas, and a vine to grow on the trellis covering the stairs. We may also do another trellis against the wall for the vine.
So we laid down part of that this evening – at least the test run. Then we will need to back fill.
Glad we got that done this weekend as the weather is now predicting snow and rain Monday and Tuesday and low 40s-50s with rain the rest of the week.
That will sure make going to Florida Thurs – Sunday more worthwhile 🙂